Who's writing cheques: the firms backing the most startups, to 30 Oct

Who backed the most companies

Ranked by how many separate companies each firm was named as backing between 7 August 2026 and 30 October 2026. Firms on the same count share a place, listed alphabetically within it.

• 1. Sequoia — 5 companies, most recently 21 October 2026. Sectors: Robotics, AI, Other B2B Software. Backed: Blacksmith (Series C, $66m round, reported); Mecka AI (stage not reported, $60m round, reported); RobCo (Growth); Rillet (stage not reported, $100m round, reported); Corma (stage not reported, $60m round, reported).
• 1. Y Combinator — 5 companies, most recently 30 October 2026. Sectors: Other B2B Software, Aviation, Biotech & Life Sciences. Backed: Easol (Series A, €17.9m round, reported); HyLight (stage not reported, €13m round, reported); Spott (Series A, €18.3m round, reported); Zeit AI (stage not reported, €4.3m round, reported); Adaptyv Bio (Series A, €34.4m round, reported).
• 3. Balderton Capital — 4 companies, most recently 9 October 2026. Sectors: AI, Other B2B Software, Consumer Services. Backed: Sava Technologies (Series B, €32.1m round, reported); Spott (Series A, €18.3m round, reported); Unit1 Studio (stage not reported, £20m round, reported); Lovable (Series C, $400m round, reported).
• 3. High-Tech Gründerfonds — 4 companies, most recently 8 October 2026. Sectors: Fintech, Cybersecurity, Food. Backed: TODAY (Seed, €2.8m round, reported); Finches (Pre-seed, €2m round, reported); Kontext (stage not reported, $4m round, reported); Veridue (Pre-seed, $4m round, reported).
• 3. IDG Capital — 4 companies, most recently 16 October 2026. Sectors: Robotics, AI. Backed: InfiMaker (Seed); Butterfly Effect (stage not reported, $500m round, reported); PHYMI (Seed, $100m round, reported); XPeng Robotics (Series A, $900m round, reported).
• 3. Seedcamp — 4 companies, most recently 19 October 2026. Sectors: Other B2B Software. Backed: Vessla (Pre-seed, $3.3m round, reported); Solvera (Pre-seed, $6.3m round, reported); Metaview (Series C, €53.1m round, reported); Embedd (Pre-seed, $2.7m round, reported).

A further 55 firms cleared the two-company floor. The live board lists every one, with each company and the announcement it came from.

Where their cheques went

Between them, the 61 listed firms backed 107 separate companies. By sector, counting each company once however many of these firms backed it:

• Other B2B Software — 21 companies
• AI — 13 companies
• Fintech — 13 companies
• Robotics — 12 companies
• Cybersecurity — 8 companies
• Semiconductors — 7 companies
• 12 other sectors — 33 companies

By stage, as each announcement labelled it:

• Pre-seed — 29 companies
• Stage not reported — 29 companies
• Seed — 21 companies
• Series A — 10 companies
• Series B — 8 companies
• Series C — 6 companies
• Growth — 2 companies
• Series D+ — 2 companies

New to the list in the last 14 days

These firms reached two companies between 17 October 2026 and 30 October 2026, dated by the announcement of the company that took them there:

• Creandum — Machenta, announced 30 October 2026
• Hangzhou Capital — Nano-core Chip, announced 30 October 2026
• Contrarian Ventures — Bleu Robotics, announced 29 October 2026
• OVNI Capital — Bleu Robotics, announced 29 October 2026
• Unconventional Ventures — Pixel Systems, announced 29 October 2026
• Edison Partners — Numeracle, announced 28 October 2026
• Shenzhen Capital Group — NeuroXess, announced 28 October 2026
• CAS Star — MoSense, announced 27 October 2026
• Hua Capital — MoSense, announced 27 October 2026
• General Catalyst — Matiks, announced 26 October 2026
• SenseTime Guoxiang Capital — Hypersphere Technology, announced 26 October 2026
• Atlantic — Cygrid, announced 23 October 2026
• Vanagon Ventures — RhymeQ, announced 22 October 2026
• Boyu Capital — Neolix, announced 20 October 2026
• Inception Fund — Vessla, announced 19 October 2026

How to use this if you are raising

• Read a fund's last ninety days, not its website. A thesis page says what a fund would like to back. The companies it was named in this quarter say what it does back, and at what stage.
• Match the stage before the sector. A firm whose recent cheques are all Series B rarely leads a pre-seed round, however close the sector fit.
• Look at who else was in the round. The other names in the same announcement are firms that fund already invests alongside, which is often the shortest route to an introduction.
• Read absence carefully. A firm missing from this list may simply not announce through the outlets we read. Silence here is not evidence that a fund has stopped investing.

What this counts, and what it does not

• Reported, not verified. Every name comes from a public funding announcement we collected, linked below. It is a record of what was reported, not a register of who invested.
• Companies, never money. When four firms are named in one round, the public record does not say who put in what. So there is no money column, and no firm's share of anything.
• Firms only, two companies minimum. Named individuals are left out, and a firm is listed on its second company. 451 more firms were named once in this window: counted, not listed.
• Our coverage, not the market. 258 of the 487 companies in the window named at least one backer, and only those can count. The window opens 1 August 2026, but our record starts 7 August 2026, so that is the span this covers. Rumoured rounds are left out entirely.
• Spellings. We merge a firm's names only where they differ by a legal suffix, so a firm reported under two different names can appear twice.
• Frozen on publication. This is the board as it stood on 30 October 2026. The live board moves with every collection run.